A lot of pad printing machines are already known which involve use of a cliche plate and a pad and which achieve a predetermined movement through a transmission mechanism to both the cliche plate and the pad, that the cliche yielding a perfect print on the pad so that subsequently an object can be printed optimally.
A drawback of known pad printing machines, of which U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,594 is a typical example, is that the transmission mechanism which imposes the specific movements to the cliche plate and the pad is composed of a large number of components among which two cam mechanisms, the first one for actuating the pad motions and the other one for displacements of the cliche plate. The two cam mechanisms are mounted on a common shaft. The construction of these known pad printing machines is usually time consuming, difficult and expensive, which has repercussions on the final cost price of the product.
Another adverse effect in connection with known pad printing machines is that, due to the large number of components, the risk of a defect is relatively high since the overall risk of a defect to the pad printing machine is the sum of all individual risks of a defect to each component and is thus directly proportional to the number of components in the machine.